BALTIMORE: Center Stage has announced its first International Hot Desk Playwright, Mar Gómez Glez, who hails from Madrid. The new initiative—made possible through a grant from the SPAIN arts & culture Residency Program, organized by the Embassy of Spain and the Spain-USA Foundation—is actually already underway. The program has been covering development and workshop expenses for Gómez Glez’s play Fuga Mundi, as well as travel and living expenses for her three-visit residency at Center Stage (she came in August and October of last year, and will return in May).

Working with her on the play are Center Stage artistic and dramaturgy fellow Catherine María Rodríguez, and director Jacob Janssen of Washington, D.C.’s Studio Theatre. “To meet in person, it makes the work so much easier,” Gómez Glez said in a statement. “We used to chat over gmail, but there is so much more we can do in person.”

Fuga Mundi, which is set in Spain in 1609, features an all-female cast, and is being originally written composed in Spanish, with an English translation to follow. Its season-long development culminates with a bilingual workshop and showcase at Center Stage in June.